


I can't help Falling in Love With You

by Jace_Stump20



Series: "Ringing up Death one shots" [2]
Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28205931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jace_Stump20/pseuds/Jace_Stump20
Summary: A short little one-shot expose into the mind of one Russell Adler. Please read the tags!
Relationships: Russell Adler/Bell
Series: "Ringing up Death one shots" [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066232
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	I can't help Falling in Love With You

“You’re weak! You’re a coward! I’m ashamed to call you my son!” With every sentence, Russell felt the belt lash against his back. His father was smart enough to never do any lasting damage, but the beatings were frequent enough it didn’t matter. Russell always had to dress carefully to hide the marks, to watch how he moved so he didn’t aggravate his wounds. 

He never cried anymore. He hadn’t cried when his father beat him since he was 4, and he was 12 now. He’d learned to construct his face into a mask, to arrange his features, and change his tone into what his father wanted to see and hear. It never helped. It only made his father think the beatings were working, so he would beat Russell more. 

“Now, go help your mother with dinner, then finish your homework and go to bed.” His father gave him one last lash before putting the belt away and letting Russell go. Pulling down his shirt as he stood up, Russell kept his head down as he spoke. 

“Thank you, father, for helping me be a man.” How he hated to say those words, but if he didn’t, the beating would only resume, and his father would be less careful. 

“You’re welcome. Remember, I only do this because I love you and I want you to be the strongest you can be.” 

“Yes father, I understand.” Russell replied, before heading into the kitchen to help his mother with the dinner preparations. 

When Russell was 16, his father took it too far. Russell had come home from school with a boy, not someone he fancied, just a boy he was friends with. His father had come home to find them both hanging out in Russell’s room. They weren’t doing anything wrong, just looking over an outdoors magazine and talking about camping, but his father had been livid. He’d sent the boy home as soon as he could, then proceeded to “beat the gay” out of Russell. 

For the first time in his life, Russell had been afraid. His father had completely lost it, beating Russel with the belt over and over again. The buckle hit his face multiple times, and by the time his mother had gotten his father to stop, his face was covered in blood, and he could barely move. That was the only time his father sent him to the hospital, and the last time his father used a belt on him. When Russell got out of the hospital, his father would only use his fists to beat him. It didn’t matter. The buckle had cut deep across his face, and the wounds never healed properly, leaving him scarred. He would carry the reminders of his father’s wrath for the rest of his life. 

After high school, Russell applied for the army, desperate to get away from his father. He did good work while he was there, and not two years later he was part of the Special Forces. The Army loved his calm under pressure demeanour, his willingness to follow orders, and his determination to get the job done.

It was right after his acceptance into the Special Forces when he received the letter from home telling him his father had died. Though the army offered him leave to go to the funeral, Russell declined it. He couldn’t bear to have to put on a show of being regretful his father had passed, when in reality he just hoped the man was suffering in hell where he belonged. 

The next time he took leave, just before he joined MACV-SOG, he did go visit his childhood home for the first time in years. Normally he spent his leaves in a hotel, but, with his father gone, he wanted to check in on his mother. 

Opening the familiar door sent a wave of half-forgotten memories washing over him. Shaking his head to dispel them, he stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind him. 

“Russell? Is that you?” His mother’s voice called from the bedroom. Russell was shocked at how weak she sounded. 

“Yeah, Mom, it’s me,” He replied, taking off his shoes and making his way down the hall to his parent’s bedroom. His mother was laying in bed, still in her nightgown, a shawl draped over her shoulders. She looked up when Russell walked in, a small smile on her face. 

“There’s my boy. I haven’t seen you in years, but you’re just as handsome as ever. Come, have a seat, tell me about yourself.” 

“Not much to tell, Mom,” Russell said, sitting on the edge of her bed. “I’m still in the Army, just got my next assignment.” As quickly as he could, he changed the topic, not wanting to talk about himself. “How are you holding up?” 

“Oh, you’re too sweet. I’m doing just fine, dear.” His mother sounded convincing, but Russell was too good at reading people now. If the smell of rotting food in the kitchen, or her matted, unwashed hair hadn’t given it away, he could hear in her voice just how broken she was without her husband around. Somehow, despite everything he had done to them over the years, his mother had loved his father deeply. 

Suddenly, he didn’t want to be in this house any more. There were too many bad memories here, too much pain. And yet...his mother looked so tired. While he may have hated his father with every fiber of his being, Russell was smart enough to realize his mother was just as much a victim as he was, and he could never hate a fellow victim. So instead of turning tail and fleeing the house and his past like he wanted to, Russell stood up and kissed his mother’s forehead. “Why don’t I make you something to eat?” He offered, heading towards the kitchen. 

“Oh, that would be nice, dear. Thank you so much.” His mother’s tired voice followed him as he left the room. 

Sure enough, the kitchen was as he expected: dirty dishes piled in the sink and half eaten bits of food covered the counter. Russell took some time to clean everything up before getting a can of soup going on the stove. While that cooked, he began going through the rest of the house, cleaning up garbage and tidying where he could. Once the soup was ready, Russell poured it into a bowl and set it on a tray alongside some crackers and a glass of milk before carrying it to his mother’s room. “Here Mom. Eat up, I’ll wash the dishes when you're done.”

His mother looked at the food for a second before she started to eat. “You’ve always been so kind, Russell. I knew your father would never get the best of you.” 

“I don’t want to talk about him, Mom,” Russell snapped, then immediately regretted his tone when the spoon froze halfway to his mother’s lips. “Sorry, I’m still a little on edge. I didn’t mean to snap.” 

“It’s alright, dear. You do look stressed. Why don’t you get some rest? I made up your old bed for you.” 

“Thanks, Mom. Don’t forget to finish your lunch. I’ll still do the dishes when I wake up.” Truthfully, Russell wasn’t tired, but he didn’t want to have to sit here with his mother any more. He could respect the fact that she was a victim, but it hurt him to see how weak she was. It made him realize how weak she’d always been. 

Before he left to go back to Vietnam, Russell arranged with a neighbor to come over and keep an eye on his mom, cook for her, and clean the place. Rebecca had always been kind to him growing up, not afraid to spend her time playing with the kid next door, and Russell would be lying if he hadn’t thought about marrying her. But he could never bring himself to ask her out. 

When Russell met Lawerence Sims for the first time, he could sense they’d get along. The hell of Vietnam brought them closer together than he’d let himself get to anyone before, and soon Sims knew his whole backstory. He even brought the man home to meet his mother, a meeting which went surprisingly well. For a moment, Russell entertained the idea of fooling around with Sims, but he was quick to shut those feelings down, not wanting to ruin a perfectly good friendship. 

After the war, Russell returned home and finally caved and asked Rebecca out. He’d had to move his mother into a nursing home a while ago, but Rebecca had kept her word, checking in on her every day, and spending time with her while Russell was gone. The two of them dated for a while, even married. Russell was happy, or at least, he tried to convince himself he was. The horrors of Vietnam plagued him, and while he was still good at acting the parts he needed to play, the CIA was sending him out to do harder and harder things. He was starting to lose himself in the lies he told, the stories he crafted. Even his mother and Rebecca stopped seeing the real him, and after a while, the only one who did was Sims. 

Late one night, Russell, now in his thirties lay in bed next to his wife and realized he didn’t love her any more. He still cared deeply about her, but there was a part of him that longed for something more, something different. However, he cared about Rebecca, and she was an important piece in one of his carefully crafted lies-the one about his sexuality. 

Russell wasn't hard set on men or women only, he didn't really care one way or another about what a person called themselves. He had fooled around a bit in ‘Nam, but when he'd gotten home, he'd needed to present himself as stable and settled so the CIA would keep him. Marrying Rebecca was a big part of that. 

So it came as a bit of a relief when she told him one night, half a bottle of wine sitting on the counter, the other half consumed, that she had been seeing a woman named April behind his back, and that she felt awful, but she loved her and wanted to live with her. The two were able to end things amicably and Russell moved back into his childhood home. 

It was then the CIA gave him his hardest job yet: Tracking down Perseus. 

Russell planned his team carefully, reading everyone's bios, trying to get a feel for how he needed to act around each of them, picking people with similar histories so it would be easier to fool them. But nothing ever went as planned. 

Truthfully, Russell never expected to find survivors on that tarmac. So when he opened the Jeep and found a person laying there, bullet in their chest and fear in their eyes, he was shocked for a moment. He was easily able to see past the clothes and persona and realized they were biologically a female, but he would keep that information to himself, keeping their gender neutral as he and his team took them from the Jeep. 

Making the call to approve the kid for MK-Ultra was one of the hardest things Russell had ever had to do. Not because it would mean hurting the kid--he hadn't really cared about that then--but because he would have to give a part of himself over to the kid. His memories would be in their head. If something went wrong...they could break down his walls, destroy his carefully crafted lies, and expose the real him to the world. Only other problem was, Russell wasn't sure who the real him was any more.

Still, war required sacrifices. That was something he'd had drilled into him for years. So he approved the plan, recreated the broken shell of a person they had found into his longtime friend, Bell. Then came the second glitch. 

Bell was a likeable person. They had a dark sense of humor, sure, but they were laid back, easygoing, and made it really easy to let your guard down around them. Everyone else on the team was charmed by them, and, despite knowing the truth, Russell couldn't help liking them too. 

He was never supposed to fall in love with them though. 

After Solovetsky, while Bell was recovering, Russell was fully prepared for them to hate him. After all, the truth was out now, Bell was supposed to hate him.

It would make it easier if Bell hated him. 

Instead, the kid actually apologized to him. If they hadn't looked so fragile and innocent, Russell would have laughed in their face. This kid was so naive it was almost funny. Whatever the fuck had happened to them in their past, Russell didnt know, but it almost made him pity them. No 24 year old should be so innocent. Not with the amount of blood on their hands. 

Still though, when Hudson gave the order to kill them, Russell had found himself protesting. Even he wasn't sure why, except for the little voice inside him nagging him that he cared about them. 

Shooting them on that cliff had been Russell trying to prove to himself that he didn't care about Bell. That he never had.

It hadn't worked. 

When he'd discovered Bell was alive, he'd tried to ignore the mix of emotions rushing through him. Still, he had focused everything he'd had on getting them back. Woods and Mason seemed to be the only two who understood, the rest were just going along with it because he'd convinced them Bell was valuable to them still. 

So here he was, with Bell back, but fighting to survive, still looking at him with those trusting eyes, still seemingly so full of innocence. As much as he wanted to say it made him sick, a larger part of him wanted to protect them. There was still part of him that could empathize with a fellow victim. So, he finally admitted his feelings to himself and began the long hard road for rehabilitation for Bell.


End file.
